


There's a Story No One Tells (Or, Three Rebels Who Never Met Spartacus and One Who Did)

by theswearingkind



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Prompt Fill, Rebel Army
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rebels are many, and Spartacus is just one man.  He cannot meet them all, but that does not mean they do not exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a Story No One Tells (Or, Three Rebels Who Never Met Spartacus and One Who Did)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightly/suthnoli](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=slightly%2Fsuthnoli).



> I chose not to use archive warnings. Please see the end notes for specific trigger warnings.
> 
> Massive thanks to static_abyss, who offered encouragement and feedback on this fic, and who also basically gave me the plot for the middle section. Couldn't have done it without your help, bb! All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> And, of course, thanks to slightly/suthnoli for creating the beautiful mix, "How We've Loved, and How We Fell (We Belong Dead)," that inspired the fic in the first place! Seriously, go listen to it. It's great. Track listing and links to the Spotify playlist are [here](http://slightly.tumblr.com/post/54456754497/how-weve-loved-and-how-we-fell-we-belong). 
> 
> Fic title stolen from Brandi Carlile's "Raise Hell."

_**the beginning** _

Her masters name her Flavia because she is born with soft down of golden hair upon her head, and they think it great luck to have a new-born slave girl with hair that shines bright as coin. While she is small, Flavia is doted on almost as though she is meant to assume mantle of heir. It was, she supposes in later days, no more than training for the children they yet expected to have, the ones she was meant to serve.

By the time she reaches her first blood, both hair and luck have changed, grown dark as all other things in that house. Years pass and no children come, and domina grows faded and bitter under the weight of her husband’s eternal judgment. He, in turn, becomes ever more callous and ill-inclined toward kindness, feeling himself most wronged by fate.

Flavia is just shy of her fourteenth summer when he orders her to his chambers and forces himself inside her, his girth and her dryness drawing blood. The pain is so great that she has to hide her face in the linens and clench teeth so tightly that her jaw aches in order to avoid crying out. Dominus does not favor noise from his slaves

Domina, for her small credit, does not punish Flavia further for warming dominus’ bed while hers remains cold with absence of husband. But neither does she make attempt to stop him, though Flavia knows she might, and Flavia is called to his bed again twice more that week. The pain eventually fades, but it never becomes more pleasant. Flavia has heard that there are women who enjoy this act, but she cannot imagine why. 

She has been dominus’ favored fuck for two long years when she misses her blood. She thinks little of it, at first. Food has been scarce among the slaves, recently, and sometimes such things happen. It is only when dominus grasps her breast, hard, while he spills inside her and she cannot stop herself from releasing a pained cry that she realizes what has happened, what it _means_. 

The knowledge opens up a new bloom of pain inside her heart, far sharper than the sting of dominus’ hand across her cheek.

When her time comes, Flavia feels no sadness that the thing that leaves her body is small and undeveloped and very much dead. Instead, there is twisted pleasure to be found in knowing that, though she has given the dominus what he most desires, he will never see his son draw breath.

Dominus takes it as a sign, proof of a curse upon him and his house, and holds her responsible. She thinks he would kill her outright, had he not need of coin.

Flavia does not know how hardened her own heart has become toward this place she once thought good, and the masters she once loved, until medicus tells her she is for the mines, and her only thought is, _good._ Better to die there than to live one more day in this fucking house.

Flavia expects to give life in passage, and when that does not happen, she thinks it cannot be long before infection from child-raw cunt will take hold and kill her there. But she has, it seems, an impossible talent for life, and months later, she yet lives. 

The girl is the tenth to take position beside her, but she is the first of whom Flavia takes more than passing notice. She well knows the signs of ill-treatment such as she herself has borne, and they are everywhere to be seen on the girl. 

Flavia has grown past kindness, but she does what she may to spare the girl further pain. 

It is some weeks after the girl’s arrival that the intruders come. Flavia does not notice until one of them leans forward, eyes bespeaking purpose, to better examine the mark the girl bears upon back. He calls out to one of his companions, a huge beast of a man, and it is only as he lumbers forward that Flavia realizes: they are none of them dressed as guards.

“Naevia,” the man says roughly, eyes locked on the girl, and though his voice sounds kind enough, Flavia has never known a man who sought out a woman and did not intend her some ill thing. 

For a moment, Flavia’s vision shutters. It seems the man bears dominus’ face. 

Flavia does not hesitate. She flings herself at him with a wordless shout of rage, rebelling against this final assault as she never could before. She will not have him touch the girl. 

But he merely thrusts her aside into the arms of one of his companions, and as he does so his face resolves itself before her eyes. Of course, he is not dominus. The look on his face is not that of a man seeking only to take what he desires, but that of a broken man made whole.

Flavia can only watch as he takes the girl so gently in his arms, holding her until she turns to face him. “Crixus?” the girl breathes, voice high and trembling in disbelief and hope. 

It is the first word Flavia has ever heard her speak. 

“Spartacus, someone comes,” another man says, suddenly appearing from nowhere to address himself to a man standing near Flavia. His words trip something in Flavia’s mind. The name of Spartacus is familiar to her from her final months in dominus’ house. She thinks the champion of Capua was called by such.

And then the man who spoke is dead, and all the intruders’ assembled company break into a run, herding her along with them. Flavia follows, but her legs are weak from lack of use, and she stumbles, landing face-first in the mud. Her arms know but a single motion now, to chip at the rock in endless repetition, and she spent what strength they yet held in attempt to shield the girl from further abuse. She finds she now lacks strength even to push herself up again. 

“Crixus, Crixus!” she hears the girl—Naevia—shriek in rising panic. Flavia would try again to go to her, to comfort her as best she could, but then there are the heavy footsteps of the guards all about her, and the mud seeps into her mouth and nose, and she finds she is very tired, after all. 

_**the middle** _

Even on the open seas, they had heard the name of Spartacus, whispers across the waves that told of one more god than man. First, he was the titan of the arena sands, who slew the giant Theokoles and brought rains to end the drought that stretched through parched and countless days. Then, he was the man who killed the praetor, who pulled the arena down around the heads of ten thousand Romans and lived to tell the tale. 

In recent days, Halil has heard Spartacus spoken of as a general of highest skill, commanding an army of thousands of rebel slaves that daily proves the lie of Roman arrogance. He knows the ships are to make port near where the rebel army is rumored to be, but it is still a surprise when Heracleo and the others in the trading party return from Sinuessa and reveal that they have actually _met_ the man who commands it. A surprise, and a joy—he accepts that Heracleo trades with the Romans, but Halil holds no love for the people.

It is a double joy when Asa tells him that one of Spartacus’ generals beat the shit out of that fuck Castus for daring to look twice at the general’s favored boy. “Not that the boy needed defending,” Asa adds when Halil finishes laughing. “I saw him training new recruits. He fought with the skill of a man twice his size.”

“Trained by Spartacus himself, no doubt,” Halil replies, and Asa’s face betrays his surprise that Halil consents to speak. He does not, usually. 

“Or by his man.”

That is more likely, but Halil prefers to believe the former. He likes the idea of the mighty commander of thousands taking the time to teach a boy how to wield sword against an enemy.

“At any rate,” Halil says, stretching into the hot sun of the late afternoon and putting effort into shaping the words he wants to speak. “I am glad to know that we work with his people, now. It was hard thing to give aid to the Romans.”

“Yet not to take their coin,” Asa points out. 

Halil scowls. Asa is sometimes too smart for his own good. “A thing of necessity only,” Halil allows. “I but followed Heracleo’s command.”

Asa grins at him. “As many Romans follow the commands of their leader, no doubt.” 

Halil feels himself scowl again, and beside him, his friend laughs. “Stand down, man,” Asa says. “I speak only in jest. You know I am of your mind.”

Halil does know it. He thinks the only reason that Asa can bring himself to speak so generously of the Romans is that Heracleo and his men will no longer have to trade with them. Not in Sinuessa, at least.

“Will you go to shore, now?” Asa asks, after a moment. “I know you would not set foot in a Roman city, but in one controlled by freed slaves—” He leaves the words dangling, not quite a question, and more tentative than Halil is used to hearing him be. Asa knows Halil’s history. He knows the reasons Halil would long to see such a thing.

“Perhaps,” Halil says at last, feeling a fierce clench of desire and hatred deep in his belly. “To see the Romans in chains, for once,” he adds, and matches Asa’s smile with his own.

They are not smiling when they receive word that Heracleo plans to break bargain with Spartacus in favor of greater Roman coin. 

Halil is a pirate. He has been a pirate for more years than he cares to remember, closer to Heracleo’s age than to young Asa’s. He puts little stock in morals, and he has sometimes cheered Heracleo’s opportunistic nature. It has kept their ships afloat and their bellies full during days when they might otherwise have starved aboard sinking vessels. Yet for all that, Halil finds himself unaccountably shocked by his captain’s treachery. Half the man’s crew stand former slaves, and no small portion of that number are branded _fugitivus_. Bad enough that Heracleo ever consented to make trade with the fucking Romans, but to strike bargain with the rebels only to turn around and fuck them all is far worse. There was no _need_.

But Heracleo is his captain, and this ship is his home. Halil scarcely remembers another, and what he does remember, he would sooner forget. He cannot so easily toss them aside.

So he stays. He stays as Heracleo slaughters the rebel fighter Sanus to seal bargain with Crassus. He stays as the Romans attack the rebel stronghold, and he watches from deeper waters as the flames rising from Sinuessa give light to dark night skies. He stays as the remainder of the pirates Heracleo ordered to Sinuessa with him return to the ships, and Asa is not among them.

He stays, but for the first time in his life, the ship does not feel like freedom. That is how it becomes clear that he must go. 

He flees in the night before Heracleo can return to the ship with whatever coin and prizes he received from the Romans. Halil does not trust himself to look on the man’s face and still be able to leave. He took Halil onto his ship when Halil was no more than a boy, and a runaway, at that. Heracleo never pressed Halil to reveal more of his past than he wanted to share, nor made him feel the weight of his good fortune at not being handed back to the Romans to die a painful death on cross, or have his balls cut from his body.

At first, Halil does not know where he will go. To pass the time, he spends a day throwing coin at a pretty black-eyed whore with a tight cunt and a willing smile. He could not bring himself to steal from Heracleo’s chests before he left, though, and his money soon begins to dwindle. It is a problem. He has few skills that might serve him well on land. The sea has been almost his whole life. He might hire aboard another vessel, but Heracleo owns these waters, and Halil is too distinctive, too easily noticed, not to draw attention. 

It is only when he hears one of the market-women whispering that Spartacus’ army has been sighted again to the north that he realizes his course. 

Despite intention, he never ventured into Sinuessa while Spartacus yet held the city. There is no one left among the rebels who would know his face.

Halil tracks the army to where they have made camp, high in the mountains—an easier task than it should have been, in truth—and presents himself before their camp. He has never been a large man, his strength lying more in his quickness and intelligence, and he has done what he can to make himself look even less of a threat: cropped his hair, shaven himself clean. Removed any adornment that might make him look a pirate.

It is but moments before two men come forward to meet him—one large and dark, the other slim and pale, both bearing weapons in hand. “Show brand,” the smaller man demands, casting a surveying gaze over Halil. “To prove you stand former slave, and no friend to the Romans.” 

Halil hesitates. The request should not come as a surprise, especially given Heracleo’s betrayal. But Halil cut his brand away when he joined the pirate’s crew so many years ago, resolved to die there among his brothers without stain upon his body. Further stain, at least.

Halil shakes his head.

“Show your mark, or else be gone, you fuck,” the man repeats, his slim fingers tightening around the spear he grips in his hands. “We are not of a mood to indulge pretenders, now.”

Halil shakes his head again, clenching teeth. How could he not have thought of this?

“Be gone, then,” the guard threatens, advancing on Halil, “and count yourself lucky I do not gut you where you stand. If our position were not so exposed already, I would do so.” He growls out a last warning, then turns to move again for position closer to camp.

“Wait,” Halil says at last, and the word comes out as all his words do, thick and awkward in his mouth. It does not stop the man who spoke to him, but it does draw the attention of the other guard, the larger one. He comes toward Halil, and despite the club he holds in his thick hands, the look on his face is somehow mild. 

Halil swallows hard, one last time, against this thing he hates to do. Then he opens his mouth and presents the split stump that remains of his tongue.

She had been his dominus’ daughter. He had only thought to tell her how lovely she was.

The dark-skinned guard considers the sight for a long moment. Then he glances back toward his friend. The slimmer man’s face still bears a scowl, but Halil thinks he looks somehow resigned, now. They confer silently between themselves, and then they move aside. 

“Welcome, brother,” the darker man says, his voice low and soft, and Halil passes into camp.

_**the end** _

The Romans who frequented the pleasure-house where Florus lived had often spoken of the Thracian gladiator’s prowess on the sands. But it was his fellow whores who whispered tales of Spartacus’ love of justice—of the protection he offered to every slave who joined his cause, not only those skilled in the ways of the sword. 

It was _that_ Spartacus who had tempted Florus to run from his masters’ house, to flee in the night under pretense of securing more oil to aid in the taking of that night’s cock. It had been more miracle than luck that Florus had found his way to the rebels, he who had scarce ever set foot out of the whorehouse he’d called home for as long as he could remember. 

He has been camped with Spartacus’ rebels for close to a month, now, but he has yet to lay eyes on the man himself. It is disappointing, but with their numbers now grown so large, it is no more than Florus might have expected.

He does not expect to feel so entirely useless. He tries to lend aid where he may, but he finds very quickly that he lacks all practical skills. He cannot prepare food for the hungry nor attend to those injured. He has never learned even to gather supplies as needed, a skill present even in the lowest house-slaves. Perhaps, he thinks despairingly, his masters were right all along—his only worth was as an empty hole for men to fuck.

He spends his free hours watching others train. The games never held allure for him, and of course, it goes without saying that he cannot fight. So Florus does not quite know why he now finds himself fascinated by the training circles. The promise of change they hold, perhaps, of common slaves turned into warriors, given direction and purpose, means to change their fates.

“You wish to join training?” he hears one morning as he sips water and waits for someone to order him to purpose. The man who speaks is old and gray of beard, with a broad, dumb face, but his eyes are sharp where they stare at Florus. 

“Apologies,” Florus says, and stands to go. He had not realized anyone noted his presence. “I will remove myself.”

The man stops him with a hand upon his shoulder. “I do not ask in jest,” he replies. “I have seen you here for many days, but you only observe. I merely wish to know reason—and to offer training, if it is desired.”

Florus feels a rueful smile twist his lips. “I doubt I have enough strength in my arms even to raise sword,” he says. “I fear I am not suited for the battlefield.” _Nor for any other place among you,_ he adds silently.

“You may never grow hardened by developing muscle, it is true,” the old man tells him, casting surveying eye over Florus’ body. “Your masters saw to that when they had you clipped, no doubt.”

A hot flush rises upon Florus’ cheeks at the old man’s words. He is what he is, but he would not hear it spoken of in such rude fashion. 

“But that does not mean you cannot fight, if you wish it,” the old man continues, raising a bushy eyebrow in questioning glance. “Not all weapons require equal strength.”

Florus does not meet his eyes. “It may be that I am meant to serve in other ways,” he says, working to keep his voice even, though he cannot fully suppress the bitter tinge in the words. No doubt there are men in camp who would welcome his company—as payment, perhaps, for protection, or as apology for adding to rebels’ numbers absent any skill of worth.

The man’s expression says he knows Florus’ thoughts, but when he speaks again, his words ignore intended meaning. “There is more than one path to honorable service,” the old man allows. “But I have seen your eyes upon those who seek training. It is not the gaze of one merely admiring displayed flesh. There is desire in your eyes, boy, not for love, but for a weapon in hand,” he urges, voice rising in passion.

Florus cannot stop himself. “Is such a thing possible?” 

The man nods. “I have heard tell of Spartacus’ last woman—that she was as the goddess Diana with the bow. She too had been a pleasure-slave all her life. Do not believe words given voice by false Roman tongue, or by those yet among us who cling to old notions of power and worth. Forge your own path. Make of yourself what you will.”

Florus looks at him, feeling breath catch in his chest—the man is no more than plainest field-slave, yet he sees straight into Florus’ heart as though he stood the gods’ own oracle. The things this old man speaks of, they cannot be, and yet Florus longs for them with every fiber of his soul. _Yes_ , he longs to say. _Yes, teach me._

“Why do you press matter so?” he asks instead. It is no idle question. Surely the man could turn his attention to matters of greater worth than convincing Florus to pick up bow. 

Something dark and fleeting passes across the man’s grizzled face. “At my first house,” he answers, halting, “when I was a man yet young in years, there was—a boy. A gelding, like you, and much favored by some in that house. It was a hard place, but he was—dear to me. He met with much ill-treatment.” The man falls silent for a long moment, his eyes seeing back to days long past, and Florus hears the ache in the quiet. He wonders what memories could cause such pain at distance of long years. “Much ill-treatment,” the man repeats softly, before adding, in firmer tone, “I would not have it so with you.” 

Florus does not give answer then, but later he finds the man—Petronius, he thinks, is the man’s name—in his cups. “Yes,” Florus says simply. “I would have you teach.”

Afterward, scarcely a day passes that does not find Florus with bow in hand, Petronius standing carefully by to aid in training. When Florus makes his first kill, a stag that gives first meat they have had in days, the satisfaction he feels from his full belly comes distant second to the feeling caused by the pride that steals across the old man’s face when he hears who provided meal.

Florus comes to the love the man. It is a blow keenly felt when he falls, not to Roman sword or the bitter snows that carry away the lives of so many, but to the simple passage of days. Florus has grown too used to life ended by steel and combat; he had almost forgotten that death comes naturally to some, and the pain is all the greater for it.

But there is no time to mourn, now—not when Crassus’ forces draw near, for what will no doubt be the last time. Not when preparations must be made to see those unable to fight to safety and freedom. Not when Florus himself must prepare for battle. 

Perhaps he will not even need to mourn, when he may soon greet his friend again on the shores of the afterlife. 

Later, then, Florus thinks. Later, he will string his bow and send an arrow hurtling toward the Romans, and he will ask the gods’ blessing on all the shots he will take this day. _For you, Petronius,_ he will think, watching with clear and steady eyes as his arrow pierces Roman throng, _and for your boy so long ago, and for me._

_**the very end** _

She remains behind because of Belesa. Belesa has been Leona’s friend since she was old enough to know what _friend_ was, and Belesa will not go until she hears tell of Saxa’s fate. “She will come for me,” Belesa insists, her dark, luminous eyes never straying from the direction of battle, her hands worrying at a strip of cloth. “She made promise, and I will wait.”

“Then I wait with you,” Leona says, pressing kiss to Belesa’s temple. “Until your woman returns to your arms.” 

Belesa smiles her thanks, but she does not meet Leona’s eyes. 

Leona cannot bear to watch the worry clouding her friend’s face—her smiling, laughing friend, who bore slavery with resilience born of necessity, but took to freedom with the easy, boundless joy of bird set free from cage—and so she turns her gaze away, watching as slaves beyond counting make their slow, unsteady way down the mountain path toward unimaginable freedom.

But no, she thinks, with an abruptness and vehemence that startles her from within. That is not quite right. They are _former_ slaves, now, and for all freedom may yet be unimaginable, it is upon them. Leona is no warrior like Belesa’s woman, but she would slit the throat of any who tried to make her answer again to the title of slave. She would carve out her own tongue before she looked again upon some Roman fuck and called him _dominus_.

There are a few fighters among those who wait, but mostly they are like Belesa, hoping for a miracle to restore loved ones to their side. Or like Leona, there only to lend support as best she can. 

She wills herself unafraid. If the Romans should come upon them, it will mean all those they wait for have fallen, and Leona would follow her friends into the underworld with mind free of darkened thoughts.

Hours later, long after they should have gone from that place, Leona spies horses cresting ridge. Despite her resolve, Leona feels her body go tense.

“Leona?” Belesa questions, then follows Leona’s gaze to where the riders approach, still too far away to make out whether they are Roman or rebel. Her grip on Leona’s hand tightens suddenly, almost to the point of pain.

For a long moment, they can but watch as the riders draw nearer. “If this is the end,” Leona whispers finally, breaking silence, “then I thank the gods that I meet death by side of trusted friend.” They are truest words she has ever spoken. 

Belesa makes no reply, but her hand relaxes by degrees where Leona holds it. 

It is only then that Leona realizes she knows the riders’ faces—as well as that of the man, hunched and listing to the side, that one rider supports in front of him.

Her first thought, when they lay him on the ground beside her, is that she must be mistaken. This cannot be the man she remembers from mere hours before. She never knew the man well, but being friend to Belesa, she sometimes found herself in his presence, and he always seemed a titan of size equal to the tales of his prowess on the sands and in battle. This man they lay before her looks so very small.

When he rallies enough to speak final words—words of consolation, no less, to comfort the friends he leaves behind—Leona feels them pierce her chest, drawing tear in eye to equal the rains he once more summons to his side. Until this very moment, perhaps, she had not truly believed Spartacus could fall. 

But however great the man may have been, Leona did not stay behind for Spartacus. She stayed for Belesa, her dear, lovely Belesa, who was denied the solace of final farewell, whose woman did not return. It is Leona’s friend who will need comfort, now.

Leona sets foot to path in dawning light of morning sky, and prays she may be ready to meet the challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for non-explicit rape/non-con, violence, and character death of both canonical and original characters.
> 
> Also! Although both of the male main characters in this story are purely made up, Flavia and Leona are both based on actual characters on the show. Flavia, obviously, is the woman who attacks Crixus in the mines. Leona is the dark-haired woman played by Liam McIntyre's real-life girlfriend.


End file.
